Hushpuppies and the like made from various recipes of dough mixtures have been enjoyed for a long time, particularly when eaten with fish and seafoods. Normally, the hushpuppy is shaped by spooning out a mass of dough and then scraping the dough from the spoon into a hot container of grease. However, with the advent of fast food restaurants for serving fish and seafood, the prior methods of shaping and cooking hushpuppies are not adequate for preparing large quantities of hushpuppies quickly. While it is desirable to prepare and cook the hushpuppy mixture quickly, it is also desirable that the hushpuppies be of uniform amount and shape so that they cook uniformly. When spooning out the hushpuppy mixture, different amounts and shapes of dough mixture are dispensed resulting in some hushpuppies being cooked more than others.
Accordingly, it is an important object of the present invention to provide a dispensing apparatus for rapidly dispensing a plurality of uniform dough masses having a predetermined shape and amount of dough contained therein.
Another important object of the present invention is to provide a dispensing device for rapidly dispensing a plurality of uniform dough masses wherein the device is of such a size that it can be easily held during manual operation and may be easily stored when not in use.
Another important object of the present invention is to provide a dough dispensing device wherein the movement of dough through the container and the severing of the dough as it passes through an outlet is synchronized so that a predetermined amount of dough is dispensed from the device automatically.
Still, another important object of the present invention is the provision of a lid member carried coextensively with the interior of a dough chamber which is axially movable therein for aiding the flow of dough through the container wherein the lid member may be easily removed for refilling the dough container with dough.